FBI Surveillance Misuse, Jim Brown Dies, and a Flying Sofa

Foreign Spy Database Misused

Heavily redacted court documents unsealed Friday revealed the FBI improperly used a digital surveillance tool more than 278,000 times to search for information on individuals, including in connection to racial justice protests in 2020 and the Jan. 6,  2021, storming of the US Capitol.

At issue is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows spy agencies to collect information from a trove of electronic communications on foreign nationals outside of the US. Section 702, first added in 2008 and renewed for six years in 2018, expires at the end of the year unless Congress renews it again. The Biden administration has pushed for its renewal, while critics have urged for change due to how data belonging to Americans have inadvertently been a part of some searches.

The FBI said it had completed internal reforms after the incidents mentioned in the court documents, including more oversight and written justifications for conducting searches. The revelations were detailed in an April 2022 court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (see overview), which has legal oversight of Justice Department surveillance requests. The court largely operates in secret.

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